Publishing Content

[paulai7301936]

This might not be the best place for this question, but I am hoping I can glean some expertise from more seasoned industry peers.

We are currently in negotiations with a new LMS provider, and I use captivate to produce courses.

They are wanting to charge us additional administrative fees for SCORM capabilities and now our negotiator is asking me the following

Do we NEED SCORM

I know that I can publish in HTML5, which is included, if this is the option we take what impacts will that have?

Thanks!

[paulai7301936]

I should also add that the LMS we are considering has built in quiz functionality.

[BDuckWorks]

SCORM is what allows you to track what courses were taken by whom, and when they were completed. If they are not completed, it tracks how far they got and when they last accessed the course.

IMHO, if you're talking to a vendor that thinks SCORM is and add-on for an LMS, RUN AWAY!

Don't let your leadership and or management get focused on some other shiny feature and buy a system that charges extra for fundamental features such as SCORM. And, don't let them stick you with a content-management system, contact management system, data-warehouse, etc that is got an LMS facade on it!

Quick estimate of usage:

Number of Employees, Vendors, contractors, etc  X Number of Courses X REQUIRED completions for Compliance training (SOCKS, HIPPA, LOCK-OUT/TAG OUT, etc) x frequency of reporting (Annual = 1; Semi-Annually = 2; Quarterly = 4; Monthly = 12; Daily (Work days in a year) = 261.

Figure the total of this calculation is the number of lines in a spreadsheet that you will have to maintain manually.

[paulai7301936]

Thanks so much. The LMS is also a CMS and says that they have full functionality to do our reporting/progress gauging etc. In your experience, this may be lip service?

[BDuckWorks]

My recommendation would be to ask for a demo account on their established server and test out your content.

It will be too much to expect to configure the demo with your look and feel, employee information, corporate reporting structure, but you should be able to test the configuration as they are proposing it.

Your legal team should write in the contract that they expect the same functionality to be delivered for the price they are quoting, to avoid the later weaseling of 'those features cost extra.' I would also for a quote for their hosting, dedicated installation or software as a service; and providing the software for your IT department to host. (Even if they don't want to do it, as it will help the vendor document the environment and validate your expectations.)

By making this part of the bid, you can have the discussions of: Server Platform (Unix, Linux, Windows), LMS services (Moodle, Wordpress, and blogging engines aren't acceptable for most corporate environments.), supported content standards (SCORM 1.2, 2004; AICC; xAPi or TinCan are minimal now).

You should watch for hidden bandwidth, upload, download restrictions.

ASK: Can we host video on this site / service without added fees? How much storage is included? What is the costs associated with exceeding those limits?

You should look closely for included features and a statement of work for setup.

[RodWard]

I agree with the others here.  SCORM support is NEVER an optional extra (at cost or free) for a true Learning Management System (LMS), but it well might be for a Content Management System (CMS) that is trying to masquerade as an LMS.

If you don't have SCORM and you build your questions or assessments using the 'tools' provided by the system then that locks you into that system and whatever limitations those 'tools' might have.  Typically the types of questions you'll be able to create will be very limited.  And the day you want to move to another better system that actually DOES have SCORM support, you'll be faced with a monumental job of re-creating all assessments for your courses.

I wouldn't consider this system myself or be recommending it as an LMS to a client.

[jm jullien]

hi I confirm. It is the first time that I see an LMS provider adding fees for Scorm capabilities.
A Learning management system without any e-learning standards such as Scorm (or other) is not really an LMS.
About the CMS, may be is it Wordpress, I know it has an e-learning plugin. But it is not a real e-learning system.
CMSs are usually sell by internet providers not by e-learning providers.
If your goal is to deploy and manage trainings, I would choose an LMS.
I would recommend you to make a project specifications document with all your expectations and requirements, then to check with your provider if all the features, management modes and report you want are possible or included. It is what we usually do. It can takes time but it avoids to buy something we don't need.